Precarious employment sets up camp in the digital environment

“Community manager sought with more than three years’ experience in areas of corporate communication. An official master’s degree in Digital Journalism and Data will be viewed positively. Candidates must have native mastery of Catalan and Spanish and level C1 in English. Self-employed and part-time, the salary is 800 euros a month, gross. Any candidates who do not meet these requirements will be ruled out from the start.”

This is one of the numerous job adverts that are becoming increasingly more frequent on digital platforms like Infojobs. According to the latest report published by Infojobs, drafted jointly with ESADE, 63% of the employed population and 81% of the unemployed believe that people joining a company today receive a salary that is lower than eight years ago for the same job. Could we then say that digital platforms have paved the way for precarious employment?

According to Gina Aran, course instructor at the Faculty of Economics and Business, digital platforms are simply a reflection of what has been going on for some time. “The global crisis that we've experienced has affected the stability of the job market: contractual conditions have become flexible, increasing temporary employment and the number of poorly paid low-skill jobs”, she assures.

Professor with the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences Elsa Santamaría agrees with her and states that precarious work has become increasingly more visible. “If in the past precarious work was a more marginal type of job in the labour market, today it is increasingly more widespread and extensive”, she worries. In her opinion, some of the digital platforms offering jobs “could be magnets for precarious work”, but its widespread presence overall “is a serious problem in the job market”.

In fact, last month the CCOO trade union stated that 90% of employment contracts currently being signed are temporary and that there is a growing trend towards employment contracts among young people with very low salaries and very long working hours.

Increasingly more personalized selection processes

The expansion of digital job search platforms has been a complete game-changer for company and candidate. According to Aran, today an average of just 20% to 25% of job vacancies are published, as it is becoming increasingly more common for companies to look for candidates on 2.0 platforms, such as LinkedIn or Infojobs. “Based on an advanced search with the job requirements, companies look for the optimum candidate, contact them, and, if they’re interested, arrange an interview, either in-person or remotely”, she explains.

According to the experts, the digital platforms have streamlined company selection processes, as human resources managers can access many more candidates, thus hypothetically increasing the probabilities of finding the right person for the job being offered.

The digital platforms have also offered advantages for people actively seeking employment, as these portals provide access to many more job offers on any device in a single click. According to Aran, many jobs that were traditionally secured solely by word of mouth have found “their digital space and are increasingly more visible”.

Despite this, Santamaría believes that the effectiveness of finding work on digital platforms is questionable. “Besides having a lot of candidates, the offers published on these portals are usually not well paid and of poor quality, temporary and with irregular working hours”, the expert on the sociology of work criticizes. In addition, she states that the people who usually use these environments when looking for work are young people who are familiar with new technologies, and that the most widespread and effective job search method is still personal contacts.

The need to reconsider employment legislation

The experts agree in that there is an urgent need for digital platforms to be subjected to specific employment regulations in light of the expansion of job offers in these environments. “Current employment regulations are insufficient in ensuring the stability of the job market and that no precarious jobs are offered”, argues Aran.

In Santamaría’s opinion, the role of the institutions is key, but both the public and the trade unions must also “reject precarious work and demand better working conditions”. For her part, Aran worries that the solution to this problem relies on governments and the current local and global socio-economic conditions. “Even though work exploitation is banned, we all know that there are companies that turn a blind eye to employment law and continue to exploit”, she concludes.